Lorgar - Daemonhood

[Indefragable]

I do want to emphasize the tongue in cheek nature of my diatribe as indicated by the line at the end.  When it comes to 40k fluff, my take is always filtered through my 'Black Legion Apostle / Abaddon Fanboy' filter.  While I disagree with the less warp-influenced, more traditional 'traitor' rather than 'chaos' marine take on the faction, and I feel trying to cater to that concept in the 40k CSM line would be a mistake, I am glad that the 30k game and especially model line exists to provide toys for those players of the opposite opinion, and I'm glad that the new multipart CSM stuff has supposedly been designed with an attempt to maintain at least some compatibility with those models for players who want to split the difference.

 

Your long post above is great and I respect where you are coming from. A counter-point (in a friendly way, I honestly don't care too much either way) could be that having a Chaos faction or two in 40k that bucks the "warpy" tend and comes off more "normal" can be a nice aesthetic balance...similar to how Space Wolves can be conceived as a "wild" aesthetic balance to the traditionally more "controlled" Space Marine factions.

[Sception]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Lorgar as a sort of 'super possessed', containing not just one daemonic spirit, or even one of each god, but several, maybe dozens, maybe hundreds.  I imagine that he's spent the last 10,000 years locked in his prayer room binding, consuming, subjugating, and integrating one daemonic spirit after another into his own soul, as if he could make himself into a sacrificial vessel to cage and contain the personified sins of an entire galaxy, as if he might become the unified singular deity of chaos undivided by simply absorbing all the daemons of the warp one screaming, struggling spirit at a time.  I envision him as a serene face staring from a twisted, barely humanoid body wracked with writhing, uncontained mutation, born aloft on a swirling cloud of ghostly spirits almost like Nagash in Fantasy, "summoning" units of daemons at a time by manifesting them out of his own person, maybe healing himself or powering psychic abilities by reabsorbing them.

 

If I were in charge of re-imagining Lorgar for 40k, that's probably the direction I'd start with.

[Sception]

 

I do want to emphasize the tongue in cheek nature of my diatribe as indicated by the line at the end.  When it comes to 40k fluff, my take is always filtered through my 'Black Legion Apostle / Abaddon Fanboy' filter.  While I disagree with the less warp-influenced, more traditional 'traitor' rather than 'chaos' marine take on the faction, and I feel trying to cater to that concept in the 40k CSM line would be a mistake, I am glad that the 30k game and especially model line exists to provide toys for those players of the opposite opinion, and I'm glad that the new multipart CSM stuff has supposedly been designed with an attempt to maintain at least some compatibility with those models for players who want to split the difference.

 

Your long post above is great and I respect where you are coming from. A counter-point (in a friendly way, I honestly don't care too much either way) could be that having a Chaos faction or two in 40k that bucks the "warpy" tend and comes off more "normal" can be a nice aesthetic balance...similar to how Space Wolves can be conceived as a "wild" aesthetic balance to the traditionally more "controlled" Space Marine factions.

 

 

IMO, that could be a potentially decent role for a Fallen Angels side faction based on the current Cypher model's aesthetic.  It's not something I'd personally want to see out of any of the 'proper' traitor legions, or even the more notable renegade chapters.

[the emperor is scottish]

The night haunter never embraced daemon hood..

He was 'human' when he died or as human as a primarch can be.

The hypocrisy of his death was two fold.

The first being that he became what he set out to punish.

However how much of this is hypocrisy I don't know because he knew this.

 

The second was from the emperor himself in killing konrad for what he had become validating in curzes mind everything that he became and everything that he did.

 

Its a tad convoluted but in a twisted way makes sense.

[Sception]

Could have sworn he was a daemon at some point. Did I remembee wrong, or was that retconned somewhere along the way?

 

Regardless, I stand corrected, thanks.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

There was definitely something daemonic going on with him on Macragge.

[the emperor is scottish]

Could have sworn he was a daemon at some point. Did I remembee wrong, or was that retconned somewhere along the way?

Regardless, I stand corrected, thanks.

There was definitely something daemonic going on with him on Macragge.

I don't think there was anything demonic going on with him on macragge.

He was just using his emperor given gifts like Corax being able to turn invisible, sanguines foresight or Russ ability to lick his own genitals.

 

Depending on who's writing him his degradation is either due to his mental state spiralling ever downwards or the warp slowly seeping in.

[Hrvat]

Slaanesh could be involved in Perturabo's ascension. Though it hasn't been touched in decades there once was a link between Iron Warriors and Slaanesh. 

 

Even though not overtly show IW do have some rather profound masochistic tendencies. 

[totgeboren]

When it comes to the nostalgia for 3.5 that many feel (me included), as I see it the primary thing that people liked were not that some of the legions were unenthusiastic chaos worshipers, but that legions were presented as having goals and motivations that were not simply "killmaimburn" or twirling mustaches.

Even the Word Bearers were in several sections described as trying to save humanity (not just spiritually, but physically), while the following iteration seemingly tried to remake the CSM into shapeless 2D bad guys. This was after all the era when all loyalists secretly wishing they were Ultramarines. :/

GW and Bl have move away from this later on, in particular the works of AD-B have portrayed many CSM protagonists as interesting characters in their own rights, and not just pawns of irrational and chaotic impulses. They have both agency and history. 
Their agency comes from having goals that are their own, and not just the goals of their gods. 
They have history from their legion, which separates them and give the reader the means of placing them in the grander setting. 

The presence of large groups that still cling to their past legion loyalty is a prerequisite for many interesting interactions the Bl and other legions. Are those that joined the BL traitors to their previous legions for example? 

Having a Word Bearer not carry a special hatred for an Ultramarine is a nice twist in a setting, as the Ultramarine most certainly would carry a particular hatred for a WB due to their shared legion history. Removing the legion history and turning all CSM into rowing bands of misfits kinda removes their connection to their loyalist opponents. 

 

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Lorgar as a sort of 'super possessed', containing not just one daemonic spirit, or even one of each god, but several, maybe dozens, maybe hundreds.  I imagine that he's spent the last 10,000 years locked in his prayer room binding, consuming, subjugating, and integrating one daemonic spirit after another into his own soul, as if he could make himself into a sacrificial vessel to cage and contain the personified sins of an entire galaxy, as if he might become the unified singular deity of chaos undivided by simply absorbing all the daemons of the warp one screaming, struggling spirit at a time.  I envision him as a serene face staring from a twisted, barely humanoid body wracked with writhing, uncontained mutation, born aloft on a swirling cloud of ghostly spirits almost like Nagash in Fantasy, "summoning" units of daemons at a time by manifesting them out of his own person, maybe healing himself or powering psychic abilities by reabsorbing them.

 

If I were in charge of re-imagining Lorgar for 40k, that's probably the direction I'd start with.

I really like this idea, and would fit perfectly with Lorgars character of seeing himself as the savior of Mankind (instead of its destroyer). It could also be used to present him as a sort of anti-Emperor in the 40k setting, taking control of and becoming one with the warp instead of battling the warp.
I hope GW does go down something more interesting than a big red/gold angry guy with bat wings.

[Sception]

I mean, not that there's anything wrong with a big red/gold angry guy with bat wings, but presumably Angron will have that particular angle more than covered.

 

I personally love when CSMs have interesting personal ambitions distinct from or even at odds with the dark pantheon, I just dont like when the defining trait of multiple CSM subfactions was "chaos? I hate the stuff, never touch it, never use anything daemonic, cut away any mutation, never show any chaos sign or sigil". The existence of such subfactions utterly prevented the csm model line from evolving & growing more distinct, and, as I've argued earlier, the idea that entire legions of marines could survive in the very eye of terror unchanged and uncorrupted for thousands of years just by closing their eyes and plugging their ears and yelling "nya nya nya I cant hear you" at the dark gods to me just entirely undercut the idea of the corrupting threat of chaos to begin with. If it's that easy to shrug off their influence, even living halt in their own realm, if that worked even in the underworld, and required so little effore that the legions doing it could still thrive, and those who embraced the poqer of the warp gained so little out of doing so that they couldnt wipe out the nonbelievers...

 

If that was the case, then what was the Emperor even worried about in the physical universe? At that rate a committed "just say no" campaign should have been enough to seal away the influence if chaos altogether.

 

 

As for flat bad guys, I too prefer CSMs with some depth and dignity, but I'd still rather see them as bad guys. Even self aware bad guys who know they're the villains, for all their grievances might be perfectly legitimate and for all the Imperium they're tearing down might be just as bad as they are.

 

I like Abaddon, who wondered the Eye, learning the true nature of chaos and learning exactly what he would need to become un order to complete his father's work, and then choosing to do so with golden eyes wide open, not tricked and shoved backwards down a flight of stairs into a fate they never saw coming like pretty much all of the traiter primarchs.

[Finkmilkana]

I still would find it interesting if Lorgar, not having become thrall to one of the gods like his brothers and after millennia of meditation actually comes to the conclusion that the chaos gods, while powerful, are not worth his worship afterall and do not have humanities best interest in mind. And he instead now decides that the new warp entity that calls itself the ‚god emperor‘ is where humanities salvation lies. The god emperor afterall is much closer to (and shaped by) Lorgars original ideas than the ‚mortal’ Emperor he denounced so long ago.

[Quixus]

I still would find it interesting if Lorgar, not having become thrall to one of the gods like his brothers and after millennia of meditation actually comes to the conclusion that the chaos gods, while powerful, are not worth his worship afterall and do not have humanities best interest in mind. And he instead now decides that the new warp entity that calls itself the ‚god emperor‘ is where humanities salvation lies. The god emperor afterall is much closer to (and shaped by) Lorgars original ideas than the ‚mortal’ Emperor he denounced so long ago.

Didn't GW claim that more primarchs would come back and two would change sides? I would have preferred Magnus to be come loyal, but Lorgar would be interesting too, as long as he kills or at least abandons Erebus in the process.

[Gederas]

I still would find it interesting if Lorgar, not having become thrall to one of the gods like his brothers and after millennia of meditation actually comes to the conclusion that the chaos gods, while powerful, are not worth his worship afterall and do not have humanities best interest in mind. And he instead now decides that the new warp entity that calls itself the ‚god emperor‘ is where humanities salvation lies. The god emperor afterall is much closer to (and shaped by) Lorgars original ideas than the ‚mortal’ Emperor he denounced so long ago.

Didn't GW claim that more primarchs would come back and two would change sides? I would have preferred Magnus to be come loyal, but Lorgar would be interesting too, as long as he kills or at least abandons Erebus in the process.

More Primarchs would come, that was stated by GW. But the change sides was never stated anywhere. It was started by some fanwank that somehow took off.

[Cleon]

I thought it was a comment from someone in the studio that some Primarchs would not be 'for the faction you expect' or something along those lines.

 

If that was real and not something someone made up, I assume it means more 'Dorn joins the Templar not the Fists and Angron is for Demons not CSM', rather than 'Lorgar/Fulgrim decides to rejoin the Imperium, the Kahn is for Chaos'

[Sception]

Given the havok it woeld wreak on existing armies, I doubt gw would have primarchs change sides unless they were going to full bore AoS the entire game, nuking most armies anyway.

 

If any chaos primarchs were to switch sides, they'd have to be non-daemonic to do so, which absolutely rules out Magnus at the very least.

[dice4thedicegod]

I guess Corax could come back in an ambiguous position, akin in some ways to Cypher. As in, he is indistinguishable from a creature of chaos but fights chaos... so can be in a number of forces.

 

Cloned fulgrim could also get out of the Necrontyr museum and try to join up with the imperium (while OG fulgrim rocks the new EC codex)

[MaliGn]

The thing that always bugged me when taking the "atheist" chaos marine route was that it was often interpreted as being fact. When I don't think that should be the case taking iron warriors for instance - they cut away fleshy mutations and replace them with bionics is only part of it, there is also the snippets about becoming one with the armour and wargear nowhere did it suggest that they didn't utilise the mechanisms and processes of replacing imperial rituals with those of chaos - their vehicles and technologies still require machine spirits to function and when those have been corrupted they require corrupt maintenance. They may downplay the warrior monk aspect of being a space marine a bit, but it is still there and the rites and rituals of the legion would still exist even if they became chaotic rather than imperial in focus. That's my take on it - those snippets are just that factoids from which inspiration should be drawn rather than full hard truths that are immutable. Iron warriors are easily as corrupt as word bearers, they just wear it differently and arguably they should start to one "more machine now than man" and deal with the inherent corruption that using machine parts built by the dark mechanicum!

[Karhedron]

I guess Corax could come back in an ambiguous position, akin in some ways to Cypher. As in, he is indistinguishable from a creature of chaos but fights chaos... so can be in a number of forces.

Corax and Russ both vanished into the Eye so could well come back warped beyond recognition, even if they are still loyal at heart. Russ seems less likely as his schtick was always a natural resistance to the daemonic/psychic.

 

Corax on the other hand definitely went off the deep end to get back at the Traitors after he euthanased the Raptors. By the time he drove Lorgar into exile, he could change into a flock of crows. Either he had previously untapped gifts or he had taken to using the power of the warp to fight the traitors. I rather like that idea as being very Nietzschian.

 

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

[the emperor is scottish]

I would have thought maybe along the lines of the lion coming back with the fallen...

[Kaldoth]

It's almost like I can hear Alpharius Omegon chuckling in the dark while everyone guesses which two primarchs are coming back :lol:

[RipOffProductions]

Part of me wishes that the final Horus Heresy Black Book will have rules for running the newly assended Daemon Primarchs who will be pressent for the Seige of Terra, and maybe even a few special units like Plague Marines sense the Death Guard were transformed into them on the way to Terra, along side Mortarion's ascension to Daemonhood…

 

but at the same time that feels a bit to much for the HH setting... especially sense such rules would either need Forge World to release their own versions of the Daemon Primarchs(which would feel redundant), or would use their existing/inevitable 40K versions(which would feel out of place stylistically).

 

but then again if the Emperor of Mankind Himself ever gets a model and rules, it would only be fitting that at least Horus should get rules for his super charged Champion of Chaos form(it would allow them make and sell an overpriced diorama of that classic artwork of their confutation on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit).

[Marshal Rohr]

I’m somewhere between Malisteen and the 3.5 zeitgeist on chaos. I think the spectrum should be embraced in the way I think loyalists should be able to do everything from semi-feral warriors to regimented Codex adherent chapters, but that is on the table. In the lore the further a traitor group gets from the eye, the more it should be forced to rely on traditional military assets. The closer is it, the more warp infused and corrupt it becomes. The Black Legion should run the gamut from vanguard elements deep into realspace that use Leman Russ and siege artillery to the core of the legion backed by glowing eyed warriors in living armor with massive daemonic engines stalking between their ranks. Every other legion should fall somewhere along this spectrum as well, depending on the players personal narrative for their warband.

 

My ultimate hope is that non-aligned chaos gets three books: a traitor human book, a traitor marine book, and a traitor mechanicum book.

[Walter Payton]

I think something else to bear in mind is that Chaos is a corrupting force, daemons lie, and something that has been consistent in the lore since very early on is that using the weapons of Chaos for yourself is to damn yourself.  

 

I agree that a lot of people's homegrown lore for their "totally-immune-from-Chaos" Night Lords or whatever is simply a get-out from the "rules" of the setting, but having a warband who delude themselves into thinking they are only using the Warp for their own gains and who ostensibly reject Chaos only to be slowly and inexorably corrupted is perfectly in-keeping with the setting.  Much like, for example, 10th Coy in the Night Lords novels.  

 

---

 

ADB replied to a thread about Ingethel the Ascended in 2011 where he said that rather than it simply being "Possessed or made into a Daemon Prince", there is a spectrum of daemonic influence.  The Primarchs, on account of being part warp-being themselves, might have a qualitatively different process to reach daemonhood than an ordinary mortal slave who beseeches the pantheon.  Perhaps they can bargain on less unequal terms? 

 

There is also the small matter of Mortarion never being described as a "Daemon Prince" in 8E Codex: Death Guard, but instead as a "Daemon Primarch".  I suspect the Studio will perform a neat little sidestep and say that "daemon prince =/= daemon primarch", thus allowing the Primarch's to be unaligned.

[MegaVolt87]

As far as the traitor legions and chaos are concerned, its worth considering that rejection of chaos is also apart of chaos. Chaos likes to tempt and corrupt. If you give in completely, it can turn on you in an instant maliciously, the game is over for the entity etc. Even the chaos gods and their champions refer to it as "the great game". Being on that knife edge of degeneration and insanity, while power is there, there is also power in old traditions, discipline and conventional warfare/ tactics. You can have both because you cannot have true chaos without order as well. That's why the undivided legions are so dangerous, and they are far better off being non liner and predictable like the DG, WE, EC and TS. 

 

Nothing wrong with a traditionalist chaos lord seeing daemon engines as disposable garbage in comparison to his legion armour assets for instance. He doesn't need to be directly involved, he can direct a crazy warpsmith underling to sort all those daemon engines out for example.